


A Veryvery True Story

by heuradys



Category: Charles de Lint - Newford series
Genre: Gen, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-28
Updated: 2014-03-28
Packaged: 2018-01-17 06:54:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1377979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heuradys/pseuds/heuradys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a given value of veryvery true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Veryvery True Story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tigerbright](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigerbright/gifts).



> The Amused One, I could never have done it without you -- thank you ever so very much for the beta, the cheerleading, and the bribery. Tigerbright, thank you for the sentence I lifted straight out of your Dear Yuletide Author letter - and for the veryvery obvious other thing. Welcome to the world, Eva.

 

 

"This isn't working." I sigh, shutting down Word. Staring at the blank page hasn't given me any inspiration, just a headache. My tortoiseshell cat makes a disgruntled noise, eyeing me briefly from her perch on the windowsill before returning her attention to the world outside the window. Outside. Now _that_ is a good idea. Where are my shoes?

As I stop on the sidewalk in front of my building to pull on my gloves, I decide to go right and explore instead of following my usual walking route. One brilliant thing about Newford, even just Lower Crowsea, I keep discovering, is that there is always somewhere new to walk, something new to find – no matter if I thought I'd been there before – and I might be able to find what I need.

In less than twenty minutes, I find myself in a park on a river island I hadn't known was there. Oh, I'd seen the few houses there from the bus route that passed several blocks away, but the channel that separates the island from the main bank is narrow enough that the tops of the trees arching over it nearly touch, even now at the near leafless and brisk end of autumn, like the giant old oaks do on Stanton Street.

I don't find what I'm looking for, but I feel certain it's there.

I start walking on the island every day, sometimes twice. I don't just stick to the sidewalks and few paved streets, either; I follow paths worn through the grass, the railroad tracks, and the wide, dirt road that clearly had once been another rail route. I look for inspiration, but instead I find small secrets and mysteries: graffiti of tiny red hearts on some rusting ironwork which had served the long-gone railway; an almost-hidden in foliage blue wooden plaque with 'Struggle' painted in a delicate, swooping script, bolted to the pedestrian bridge linking one end of the island to another park on the mainland; a small cairn of stones tied together with rough twine; a single, tiny, perfect white feather; two weathered, wooden rocking chairs in a clearing in the middle of the woods with a clothesline stretched over them, five faded, worn pieces of fabric on the line...

I watch a tiny red squirrel who chatters at me from the very tips of the branches far over the river, and I wonder if he can swim. A squadron of hissing, crazy wild geese has commandeered the beach at one end of the island, and I wonder if they are planning a mission to free the pair of big, white, domesticated geese who live with a flock of exotic chickens on the other end. On a couple of days, three unleashed Australian Shepherds – poised and intelligent – watch me, and I wonder nervously if they remember when they were wolves.

There's also a big ginger cat, which comes running every time she sees me. We have long conversations. She is not a stray – too well kept and too well fed – but I can't figure out where she lives. She throws herself at my feet demanding tummy rubs at the slightest provocation. I have to start carrying cat treats with me to distract her when I need to go home, because she never wants to let me leave; she walks beside me, peering up at me, squinting when the sun hits her eyes, complaining.

And there are the crows. As the days grow shorter and dusk earlier, I see more and more of them. They throng in the treetops, cawing and heckling each other, only to take off and perform more aerial acrobatics. I enjoy it as much as they seem to be, and I start timing my walks so I get to experience their exuberant fun every day. It's the only kind of murder I ever hope to witness – and nobody else pays attention to it. They don't even look up, the joggers, dog-walkers, and others in the park. It's amazing.

I never forget why I'm there on the island, though. I think about it constantly for almost two months. Anyone listening would hear me muttering about fairy tales and gifts, about ideas and writer's block, and about how daunting and stress inducing it is to offer up one's art beside the art of people who are just so much cooler than you are, who have much more talent and experience.

Every day the feeling gets stronger: that I am waiting for _something_ important to happen, that the moment of inspiration I craved will happen today or tomorrow or the day after that but it will happen.

Then it does.

But I don't notice.

Tens of crows – at least fifty – are on the railroad tracks right where they cross the road, probably snacking on grain fallen from a train, that afternoon. I get closer to the flock than I ever have, grinning and walking slowly, utterly delighted... only for the delight to shift toward disappointment as the birds take off en masse.

"Wait, no, I'm sorry! Don't go!" I don't say it too loudly; I'm in awe. I'm in a cloud of crows, their wings inches from me as they pass by. "Please, I—"

I'm interrupted by cawing like laughter right behind me, and I look over my shoulder; two large crows eye me from the naked branches of an alder sapling in the middle of a flowerbed. The clangor of the crossing's warning bells abruptly drowns their hoarse voices, the red lights start flashing, and I have to laugh at myself. Of course.

The train rumbles by. I glance to my left to see how long it is. Will I have to double back and take the bridge over the tracks instead of following the route I'd planned? No, it looks like a short train, not like the miles-long ones that haul coal or oil and sometimes stop for long periods blocking both foot and auto traffic.

I smile at the sight of a giant red crow the size of a thunderbird spray-painted on the side of a boxcar and turn to see the reaction of the pair behind me, but they're gone. The last car of the train passes me, and I cross the tracks before the bells cease. A strong gust of wind urges me around the curve of the path into the lee of the hill. The ginger cat trots toward me from thirty yards away, and I grin. "Hey you," I say as she nears. "Cold today, isn't it?"

She makes urgent 'want want' noises, looking up past me, wriggling as I scratch around her ears. I look up, following her gaze. The two big crows are there, perched side by side at the very top of a thin, ancient aspen tree that has to be at least five stories tall, looking down at us and preening. I wave at them, and then go back to my petting duty. "I wouldn't mess with them," I tell her. "I think they'd kick your ass." She purrs, head-butts my knee in agreement, and rolls onto her back. "When are you going to have those kittens, huh? You're bigger every day!"

That night I dream that I'm at the top of a giant tree somewhere that looks like sunset. I don't remember any more details, because the petulant caterwauling of my tortoiseshell cat insisting that she has never been fed _ever_ sends them flying, like crows faced with a train. I roll over and face her cranky expression with a sigh.

Later that afternoon on the island, I find little bits of random pages of a paperback book scattered in the weeds. I've had some luck in the past with ideas sparked by found words, so I start to gather the pieces.

"Remember when we thought the tree of tales would have pages for leaves?"

I startle at the voice behind and above me, one of the scraps of paperback escaping my fingers to fly away like down. I turn, glancing up, as another voice answers the first.

"That was veryvery silly of us."

Two upside-down, mischievous dusky girls are looking back at me from a tall ash tree. They've got their knees hooked over a branch that looks far too slender to support their weight, but it must be strong enough, for it is. Their dark eyes glitter and their spiky, unruly hair shines like the sad pile of crow feathers I'd found a bit further down the path.

"Your words are blowing away," one of the girls says, gesturing off to my left.

"They're not my words," I say. My heart's in my throat. Just looking at them has me feeling off kilter, faint hours-old memories of deep amber-gold light, a much larger – impossible – tree, stirring in my brain. I shake my head. "My words all blew away a long time ago."

"No, they haven't," the other girl says. "You couldn't be talktalking to us if they did."

"Duh," the first one adds.

"I meant that I have writer's block." I pick up a few more of the torn pages. Skimming them, I'm sure they won't help. At least I can throw them in the trash when I get home.

When I'm finished, the girls are out of the tree, sitting in the grass beneath it. "I'm Zia," one says, grinning, "And she's Maida. We're not sisters. I can tell you were going to ask."

"I could tell, too," Maida agrees. "Everybody does."

I have to laugh, because I was planning to ask. They do look virtually identical. I can't tell how old they are, either. One instant they look about fifteen, then the next they look about twenty-five. It's something in their eyes, I think. But it doesn't matter, because they're friendly and curious, and they somehow remind me of my feline friend... Or the—

"And we know your name and that you're one of Ray's cousin's farfarfar back, but there's a bit of feline in you too. All mixed up."

I — who? What? "Ray?"

"He's canid. We're corbæ," Maida states. "Because you were going to ask if we're crows, weren't you?"

Zia starts giggling. "Oh, she was! She just didn't know it!" She pats the ground beside her. "C'mon, sit down."

"Yes, sit." Maida agrees. "We've been watching you. We don't bite. We're veryvery nice and not one bit scary at all."

I sit. I should be walking away, because they're crazy. But... I've heard stories about the crow girls, about animal people. And, besides, how much crazier is it to talk to girls who think they're birds than to talk to a cat?

"Why do you think you need someone else's words?" Zia asks, a little more solemn again.

"I get to write a story," I explain. "It's a gift for someone. Two people, really. A mother and a newborn baby girl." I gesture helplessly with my handful of scraps, and then stuff it in my jacket pocket. "I haven't written anything in a year – I've tried, believe me – and I was trying to find something worth writing about. And I have a deadline."

"It's too bad that Jack's gone," Maida says. "He was veryvery good with stories." They both look terribly sad for a moment, but their faces clear when I blink. "We can try to help though. We're very useful girls!"

"What's the baby's name and what kind of story? Because there's veryvery many. Names. And stories."

"Eva, I think. And I was thinking of some sort of fairy tale, maybe, because people learn things in fairy tales. But those can be pretty dark, and I'd like something happy."

"We're happy. You should write about us."

"Oooh," said Zia, "if you write about us, will that make Eadar?"

Eadar, I'd heard of them, too: beings called into existence out of imagination. Written, drawn, just dreamt about, and dependent on belief to keep existing. Too magical to be real, too real to be wholly imaginary...

"Yesyes!" cried Maida. "Then they could write about us and make more."

"And more and more! A veryvery wonderful excellent hooley of us!"

"I don't think it would be that recursive, wouldn't be crows all the way down," I mumble, unheard.

"But don't write about Raven. That would be—"

"Veryvery bad."

"An unkindness. Veryvery unkindness."

"I wouldn't know," I say.

"He doesn't like our singing. Can you believe that?" Zia looks indignant.

Before I can answer, they're both singing. It's... awful, but infectious. "No, nay never, no more," they yell, harshly out of tune but oddly in harmony with each other. "Will I play the wild rover, no, never, no nevermore! Nevermore!" They collapse on the ground giggling, and I can't help joining in.

After a few minutes, Maida sits up. "You know, you could write about... Remember when Ray got himself that new skin we like so much?"

"Oh that look was veryvery fun. Mmm."

Their smiles turn more adult again, smooth, sensual and happily wicked.

"Remember when he came back and we spent all night—"

"No, I couldn't write about that. She asked for no gratuitous sex," I say. "And that would be."

"You're no fun at all." They both pout unconvincingly, then both prop their elbows on their knees and their chins in their hands. Their foreheads crease as they think.

"Huh," Zia finally says after several long minutes, her solemn expression clearing. "It's ever so simple!" She runs her hand through her hair, producing a feather like a magician pulling a coin out of someone's ear. Maida does the same, and twirls hers in her fingers.

"It is?"

Zia leans forward and whispers, "You've been thinking too hard!"

Maida's laugh peals out. "I see, too! Stop thinking. Duh."

"But..." I rub my forehead. Their logic is making my head hurt. "Then what's the answer?"

Zia takes Maida's feather from her. "Eva means life. And she's got a brand new one. What do you want to tell her about living it?"

"I... Huh. I don't know."

Zia holds out the feathers to me. "Maybe you should sleep on it. But don't think about it. Just _know_ it." She smiles.

"I'll try." That would be a good trick. But it does make some sense, I suppose. Sometimes when I'm walking and exploring, I feel I'm close to an idea, but if I focus on it, it disappears. I take the feathers from her. "What are these for?"

Maida's smile is as happy and sweet as Zia's. "They're so you remember."

Zia licks two of her fingertips, and brushes them across my forehead. The world goes swimmy; my eyes close.

I don't dream.

I wake up. It's dusk; higher up the sky is midnight blue and dark lilac, but the mostly bare branches of the giant oaks across the road are stark and black against the deep amber and golden hues of the last of sunset. I'm alone, I'm cold, and I feel very small as I lie there and watch huge leaves tumble and whirl overhead in the strong, blustery wind.

Perspective rights itself as I stand. They're not leaves, but crows. The trees aren't towering forever-trees, and I'm not an insignificant speck.

I know.

Every one of those tiny perfect moments on the island happened only to _me_. I was the only person to experience them. And they were just as marvelous and special as the 'more important' moments that happen for other people. They keep happening every day, and when I let myself feel them, fully experience them as they happen, I am filled with so very much _joy_.

Joy like a light inside me.

That is what I need to share with Eva: pay attention to life – and to those instants when you're filled with happiness – live in the now, strong and true. The smallest things may be the most special. Everyone is important. The crow girls do change people, even if you never meet them: they help you see the Grace inside you and the world all around you with new eyes.

And you'll always notice crows.

"I love your singing," I call after the departing birds. "Thank you!"

When I get home, I set the pair of corbæ feathers at the base of my monitor, take a deep breath, and begin to type...

 


End file.
